Teaching summary
Pastors Leonard and Lori Rola teach that believers must reject thoughts that contradict what God says about their identity in Christ. Although believers live in physical bodies and experience a physical world, God has given them divinely powerful spiritual weapons for tearing down destructive thoughts and long-established mental strongholds. Christians are called holy, righteous, blameless, justified, complete, and deeply loved because of what Jesus accomplished—not because of their performance. By renewing their minds and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, believers can live from their true spiritual identity.
Bible verses referenced
2 Corinthians 10:3-6- “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.”
Romans 3:10- “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.”
Ephesians 3:14-21- “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that can do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”
Teaching notes
Table of Contents
- Opening: Seeing Believers as God Sees Them
- Citizens of Heaven Making an Arrest
- Divinely Powerful Weapons for Spiritual Warfare
- Destroying Thoughts That Contradict God’s Knowledge
- Righteousness Through Faith in Jesus Christ
- I Am, I Can, and I Have
- Renewing the Mind Every Day
- Pastor Leonard’s Struggle to Embrace His Righteousness
- The Obedience of Christ and the Fulfillment of the Law
- Pastor Lori’s Notes to “Mr. Righteous”
- The Life of Christ Deep Within Us
- Closing Encouragement and Appreciation
Opening: Seeing Believers as God Sees Them
Pastor Leonard opens the teaching by warmly welcoming everyone alongside his wife, Pastor Lori. He jokes that being with his wonderful, glorious, beautiful, and amazing wife is the best part of his day, while sharing the Word with the audience is the second-best part. He explains that this will be a relatively short session intended to further establish the message taught the previous Sunday and help springboard believers into the life God has prepared for them.
Pastor Lori greets the audience by calling them saints and reminding them that they are blameless, holy, righteous, and justified. She emphasizes that the Father sees and loves believers just as much as He loves Jesus.
Pastor Leonard agrees and explains that Pastor Lori continually reminds believers that they are saints because God continually reminds them of this truth. He points to the Apostle Paul’s repeated practice of addressing believers as saints throughout his letters. Paul also described believers using words such as holy, faultless, blameless, perfected, and complete.
Pastor Leonard urges believers to take those words seriously and see them as truths etched upon their souls. When people believe what God says about them, they can begin to walk in the reality of those truths.
He recalls a statement associated with Joseph Prince: when people believe correctly, correct living becomes the resulting fruit. Pastor Leonard explains that their purpose in teaching is to help people believe about themselves what God already knows and believes about them.
Citizens of Heaven Making an Arrest
Pastor Leonard introduces the passage that formed the foundation of the previous Sunday’s message, which was titled “Make an Arrest.” He explains that believers are responsible for making what he calls a citizen’s arrest.
Christians are citizens of heaven, citizens of the kingdom realm, and citizens of the kingdom of God. Therefore, when something operates illegally within the realm in which believers are walking, they have the responsibility to arrest it, cast it out, and remove it.
The central passage is:
2 Corinthians 10:3-6- “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.”
During the original teaching, Pastor Lori reads this passage from the New American Standard Bible. Pastor Leonard explains that he is not committed exclusively to one Bible translation. He compares translations and sometimes chooses one because its wording communicates a particular idea more clearly. For this article, the passage has been presented in the King James Version as requested.
After Pastor Lori reads the passage, Pastor Leonard draws attention to the tremendous power contained in it. He notes that there is a great deal contained in Paul’s words and begins explaining how they apply to the believer’s thought life.
Divinely Powerful Weapons for Spiritual Warfare
Pastor Leonard explains that people live in what he humorously calls “flesh suits.” Some flesh suits may appear nicer or more beautiful than others, leading Pastor Lori to tell him that he is handsome, affectionately. Nevertheless, everyone lives in a physical body and walks through a physical world.
Although believers live in the physical world, they do not gain spiritual victory by striving, achieving, or fighting through physical means alone.
The passage states:
2 Corinthians 10:3-6- “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.”
God has equipped believers with spiritual weapons. Pastor Leonard focuses particularly on the description of these weapons as mighty through God. He describes them as divinely powerful weapons.
If these weapons are divinely powerful, nothing should be able to stand against them. When believers use what God has given them properly, nothing contrary to God should be able to continue standing against them.
One of the believer’s greatest weapons is a renewed mind. Pastor Leonard asks the audience to consider how extraordinary it is that someone can become more effective in the gifts and giftings of God by renewing the mind. Renewing the mind is not presented as a small or insignificant activity. It is part of the divinely powerful weaponry God has given His people.
Destroying Thoughts That Contradict God’s Knowledge
Pastor Leonard focuses on Paul’s instruction to cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.
The complete passage reads:
2 Corinthians 10:3-6- “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.”
Pastor Leonard explains that, in this teaching, the “knowledge of God” is not merely what a believer knows about God. He understands it as including what God knows about the believer.
It concerns what God knows to be true about His new creation and what He knows to be true about His children, sons, and daughters. Believers have divine power to bring down speculations, wrongful mindsets, hurtful mindsets, and oppressive mindsets that cause them to think contrary to the way God thinks about them.
A person might look at something they recently did and conclude, “I cannot be righteous.” Someone might remember what they did the previous day or even earlier that same morning and use that behavior as evidence against their righteousness. That thought must be challenged by the truth of what God has accomplished through Jesus Christ. Believers are not supposed to allow their present behavior or past failures to become greater in their thinking than God’s declaration concerning their new identity.
Righteousness Through Faith in Jesus Christ
Pastor Leonard addresses a familiar biblical statement that people sometimes use to argue that no one can be righteous:
Romans 3:10- “As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one.”
In explaining his understanding of the verse, Pastor Leonard says that there are none righteous among those attempting to attain righteousness through their own strength, power, and ability rather than by believing in Jesus Christ.
Once a person believes in Jesus Christ, righteousness is no longer something that person must achieve through human effort. Jesus accomplished the work. According to the teaching, believers are not given a partial righteousness; they are made completely righteous.
Pastor Lori reinforces this message by describing believers as blameless, holy, and worthy. God sees believers through what Jesus has accomplished. Everything Jesus has provided through His finished work now belongs to those who are in Him.
Pastor Leonard and Pastor Lori emphasize that believers possess the righteousness of God. There is no higher or greater righteousness for them to obtain. Their righteousness is not measured by human behavior, personal achievement, or successful religious performance. It is based upon Jesus Christ.
Because of this, thoughts of condemnation and unworthiness must not be allowed to overrule God’s declaration. The believer must use the divine power God has provided to reject every thought that challenges the truth of their righteousness in Christ.
I Am, I Can, and I Have
Pastor Leonard mentions his book, I Am, I Can, and I Have. He explains that its message is based on three foundational truths:
Who God says he is.
What God says he can do.
What God says he has.
These truths provide a practical framework for renewing the mind. The believer’s identity, ability, and spiritual possessions must be determined by God’s declarations rather than by emotions, circumstances, mistakes, or the opinions of other people.
Pastor Leonard returns to Paul’s instruction:
2 Corinthians 10:3-6- “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.”
Any thought or speculation that challenges what God says about the believer must be destroyed. Pastor Leonard notes that many contrary messages exist, including messages preached from some church pulpits.
One common statement is that Christians remain sinners who have merely been saved by grace. Pastor Leonard rejects that description of a believer’s present identity. He teaches that sin was placed upon Jesus and carried away through His death. Jesus was raised in newness of life, and believers were raised in newness of life with Him. According to Pastor Leonard, sin continues to dominate people’s thinking only when they entertain incorrect ideas and claims that contradict the finished work of Christ. These are the kinds of speculations and thoughts that must be cast down.
Renewing the Mind Every Day
Pastor Lori adds that people are deeply affected by what they continually think about. She encourages believers to carry themselves with confidence and know that they are blameless, holy, righteous with God’s righteousness, and completely loved.
She describes God’s love as endless and beyond ordinary definition. The more believers think about that love and renew their minds to their identity in Christ, the more naturally they will begin to live from it.
This is why Pastor Leonard and Pastor Lori repeatedly remind people that they are blameless and holy. Just as spouses may say “I love you” every day, believers can hear the truth that they are blameless and holy every day of the year without hearing it too often.
Pastor Lori says that what people continually think about is what they bring about in their lives. The mind must therefore be continually filled with the truth of God’s grace, love, and finished work.
Renewal is not presented as an attempt to make God accept the believer. It is the process of bringing the believer’s thinking into agreement with the acceptance, righteousness, holiness, and love that God has already provided through Jesus.
Pastor Leonard’s Struggle to Embrace His Righteousness
Pastor Leonard openly shares that it took him time to embrace his righteousness and holiness. Instead of looking at the truth of God’s Word, he continually looked at his behavior in the flesh.
He returns to Paul’s teaching about the spiritual battle:
2 Corinthians 10:3-6- “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.”
Pastor Leonard explains that wrong thoughts can become strongholds. Believers must use the divine power God has provided to cast down those speculations and remove those strongholds.
Although believers walk in physical bodies, their spiritual battle is not fought according to the flesh. Pastor Leonard had been evaluating himself according to his fleshly behavior. When he saw conduct he disliked, he concluded that he could not be righteous or holy.
He was fixing his mind on what he calls the unrenewed Lenny Rola—the version of himself that had not yet understood what happened when he placed his faith in Jesus Christ. His feelings and self-evaluation were being shaped by visible behavior rather than by the spiritual reality produced through faith in Jesus. The truth, according to the teaching, remained unchanged: regardless of what his flesh or unrenewed thinking told him, he was holy and righteous because of Christ.
The Obedience of Christ and the Fulfillment of the Law
Pastor Leonard emphasizes the wording concerning bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
The passage states:
2 Corinthians 10:3-6- “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.”
He stresses the difference between “obedience to Christ” and “the obedience of Christ.” In this teaching, Pastor Leonard’s focus is not upon believers attempting to establish righteousness through their obedience to Jesus. His focus is the obedience Jesus Himself demonstrated toward the Father.
Christ’s obedience allowed the demands of the law to be fulfilled. Pastor Leonard teaches that because those demands were fulfilled through Christ, the law could be canceled out as the means by which people seek righteousness and acceptance. Believers can now walk in the fullness of grace and in the full love of the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father. Their confidence rests in Christ’s obedience and completed work rather than in their ability to fulfill the law through human effort.
Pastor Leonard notes that he explained this distinction in greater detail during the previous Sunday’s sermon. In this shorter follow-up teaching, he concentrates on its relationship to the renewed mind: thoughts that judge the believer’s identity according to human performance must be brought into captivity to what Christ accomplished through His obedience.
Pastor Lori’s Notes to “Mr. Righteous
Pastor Leonard shares a personal story about how Pastor Lori helped him renew his mind. She repeatedly left notes reminding him that he was righteous.
One of those notes remains near his computer and says, “I love you, Mr. Righteous.” It is positioned where he can continue to see it. Because Pastor Leonard went to bed earlier and rose early to spend time with the Lord, while Pastor Lori stayed up later and had her quiet time at night, she would leave notes for him to discover the following morning.
The notes appeared throughout the house. One would be in the bathroom near the sink where he brushed his teeth. Another would be near the coffee pot so he would see it before making his coffee. Everywhere he went, another reminder of his righteousness was waiting for him.
Eventually, he became frustrated and told her to stop telling him he was righteous. His reaction revealed the conflict taking place in his mind. He was looking at his flesh and behavior instead of looking at the spiritual reality achieved through faith in Jesus Christ.
Pastor Lori’s repeated notes were confronting an established stronghold. Although Pastor Leonard’s feelings resisted the message, the notes continually presented the truth he needed to believe. They helped redirect his attention from the unrenewed picture he held of himself to the righteous identity God had given him through Christ.
The Life of Christ Deep Within Us
Pastor Lori points to the prayer found in Ephesians chapter 3 and says that the life of Christ is deep within believers.
The complete prayer reads:
Ephesians 3:14-21- “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that can do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”
Pastor Leonard jokes that because he is only about five feet ten inches tall, one might wonder how deep that life could be. He then explains the intended meaning: the life of Christ is securely within the believer, and nothing can dig it out or remove it.
Pastor Lori connects this truth to renewing the mind. The believer is not trying to place Christ’s life within themselves through effort. Christ is already present within. The mind must be renewed to that reality.
Pastor Leonard ties her observation back to Paul’s instructions. Believers must cast away contrary thoughts, make an arrest, imprison those thoughts, and send them away for life. They must refuse to allow them to return and instead live in God’s reality.
Closing Encouragement and Appreciation
Pastor Leonard and Pastor Lori close by encouraging believers to make an arrest whenever thoughts arise that contradict their identity in Christ. Those thoughts should not be entertained, negotiated with, or permitted to establish strongholds. They should be cast down through the divinely powerful resources God has provided.
Believers are encouraged to live with the knowledge that they are saints—holy, blameless, righteous, justified, complete, and loved by God. The Father’s declaration and Christ’s finished work are greater than the believer’s feelings, visible circumstances, past mistakes, or present imperfections.
Pastor Lori thanks the audience for being God’s hand extended through their love and support. She tells them that she and Pastor Leonard appreciate and love them, and she wishes everyone a wonderful week.
Pastor Leonard also acknowledges those who feel led by God to support the ministry. He directs them to the ministry’s website, where a giving menu provides instructions for the available methods of giving. They close by expressing their love for the audience and promising to return with another teaching in a few days.
We hope this article blessed you and helped you recognize the spiritual authority God has given you to reject every thought that contradicts your identity in Christ. Please share this teaching with others so they can renew their minds, embrace the finished work of Jesus, and live in the reality of God’s grace and love.